Where Are You Going, How Have You Been?

"Where are you going." uh? "Where are you going?" one of my favorite yoga teachers called out in class the other night. Inadvertently and unintentionally out loud I repeated the question "Where AM I going?" which drew some chuckles. Her response went something like "that's a much longer conversation for later on". This stayed with me though through the entire class and into the next day. It's a question not unfamiliar to all of us - "Where am I going?". As I mulled this phrase over and over again it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn't exactly the right question to ask. It had a lot of meaning, no doubt. It's true we all question our choices in life and wonder if we're making the right decisions.

We are all trying hard to peer into the future, squinting with fierce concentration, seeking to glean a particular life path. We want it laid out with some precision leading hopefully to justification for the effort involved today. There is an inherent quid pro quo in everything we do. But that's being human. That's what separates us from other animals. We have the ability to weigh the acts of today and project, correctly or incorrectly, how others will respond to them in the future. On the other hand an animal just does. If your dog is happy with you he wags his tail and approaches, a cat will purr and crawl up into your lap because at that moment it's the right thing for them to do. They don't stop to consider - if I behave this way then maybe I'll get more food later or sure, perhaps if I'm friendly this person will pay more attention to me tomorrow. They behave as they want in the instance. They relate to you as they are feeling, right now, right at this moment.

We're a little more complicated. We act in all kinds of strange manners always with the future in mind. We plan, we scheme, we plot with hope and desire. We consider interactions not for what they mean in the present necessarily but rather for what affect they might have on others and how it will play out at a later date. It's a behavior ingrained in our species. I'm not so sure that this is much of an evolutionary prize.

It's set me to thinking. Maybe I've been asking the wrong question these past few days. Could it be that this practice of being human has got in the way of our being who we truly are? Maybe the question shouldn't be "Where are you going?" but rather "How are you going?"

"How are you going?" This boils down to the hardest question of all, "Who are you?" More specifically, how do you approach life, how do you deal with people and the everyday ins and out of what we call living. This is the true question. This is what we're here to find out. The path is irrelevant, you get to where you're going to go regardless, often times you have no real choice, life just happens. It's how you deal with it, your attitude, your passion, your joy of the moment and the anger that boils up when you you don't understand a given situation. It's how you act and how others perceive you that matter most. Not where you're going, not how popular you'll be or how important you are but who you are in any given situation and how you affect those who interact with you right now that matters most.

A hero is after all just someone who lifts the spirits of others. I believe we should endeavor to simply be the hero for those around us. Don't worry about "going" anywhere, just be the person who brings to the party the feeling - "hey I'm here and I'm ecstatic that you're in my life - knowing you makes this a better world". If you can do this, if you can accomplish this small task, well you've answered the question - "How am I going?". "Where" then becomes but a matter of pausing briefly and looking at the people around you and acknowledging the appreciation they have for you. You are "going" in the right direction.